The list of realistic targets in Ohio State's 2012 class continues to shrink and one of the biggest names left on the board is Cincinnati (Ohio) Taft wide receiver Dwayne Stanford. The 6-foot-4, 195-pound prospect is weighing offers from numerous programs around the nation. Unfortunately for Stanford, a high ankle sprain has been slowing him down and it showed in a loss to Withrow on Friday night.

"In our loss Friday to Withrow our offense could just never get going," Stanford said. "I had hurt my ankle and I really shouldn't have even played, I was out there at like 50-percent. All they really did was just load up the box and blitz everybody and so it was hard on our offensive line. We had to put the game on our defense and they did the best they could but our offense just couldn't get it going."

The loss dropped Taft to 2-2 on the season but thanks to a strong schedule, the Senators still have a chance to make the playoffs.

"We definitely just have to pick up from last week and put this loss behind us," he said. "We have to learn from our mistakes and get our line together and our offensive strategy together and I think we'll be good here this week against Aiken and further down the road."

Stanford has been making some big plays for Taft on offense but defensively, it's been another Ohio State target in Adolphus Washington that has been dominant force for the Senators. Stanford can't help but be impressed with the season Washington is having so far.

"He closed the gap for us last week, really he sealed the win," Stanford explained. "They tried to run a screen play and he just read it and intercepted it and then the following drive he had like two sacks that drive to stop their drive. He's been phenomenal. They always try to double and triple team him but it doesn't work. He's like a man-child out there."

On the recruiting front, the two have stated numerous times that they would like to play together at the college level if possible. They are hoping to sit down and start scheduling some official visits here in the very near future.

"We're going to try and set something up for like the second week of October," he said. "We're trying to see what our schedule is like and I think the second and third weeks of October we would like to set up some visits to take."

Right now, Stanford said he's looking at five schools with three of those five sitting at the top of his list as he prepares to take some visits.

"Right now it's really Ohio State, Alabama, LSU, Arizona State, and Cincinnati, are the main schools that I'm looking at," he explained. "I guess you could say that Ohio State, Alabama, and LSU are higher than Cincinnati and Arizona State."

With Ohio State sitting near the top of Stanford's list, the big receiver says he may not take an official visit to Columbus because of the comfort level that he and Washington already have with the campus and the coaching staff.

"We've been to Ohio State so much that we feel like we've basically seen everything," he said. "We feel like why should take an official there when we can just drive up and do everything unofficially. If we don't take our five official visits, then we'll probably take one to Ohio State."

Despite all of that, there's a good chance the duo will make it up to Columbus at some point for an unofficial visit.

"Yeah definitely," he said. "If there's a time where we don't have any official visits scheduled and Ohio State has a home game, we would like to get up there."

Stanford has maintained that he would like to make a late-October decision if at all possible, and that it will just come down to when he can get some of his official visits out of the way.

"I just want to take some visits to some colleges first, just to see what it's like somewhere else and then I'll probably make my decision," he said.